Losing Ground (November 1-15, 1980)

Deep within the Himalayas, some hundreds of miles north of Dehradun, a narrow highway winds its tortuous way through a region known as Jaunsar, to arrive eventually near Jaadi, a little hamlet inhabited by polyandrous tribals. Recently, when India Today visited Jaadi, only the womenfolk were home

Deep within the Himalayas, some hundreds of miles north of Dehradun, a narrow highway winds its tortuous way through a region known as Jaunsar, to arrive eventually near Jaadi, a little hamlet inhabited by polyandrous tribals. Recently, when India Today visited Jaadi, only the womenfolk were home; the men were out grazing sheep. Shy initially, they opened up on being presented with a prized commodity: cigarettes. One of them, Soanri, a talkative middle-aged housewife, has been married to a group of five brothers ever since she can remember. She says: "We Jaunsaris practise fraternal polyandry - only brothers can marry a common wife. Our ancestors," she adds with a straight face, "were the Pandavas, and the system comes down to us from the polyandrous union of the Pandava brothers with Draupadi." But Jaadi, like other Jaunsar villages, has veered steadily towards monogamy in recent years.

- by Bulbul Pal

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